


Starting Now

by magikfanfic



Series: As Safe as Possible [3]
Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Self-Esteem Issues, anxiety mentions, light Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 11:01:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13165551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magikfanfic/pseuds/magikfanfic
Summary: It comes as no surprise to anyone when he’s the first to say it, his words lancing through the air of the abandoned warehouse where they are, once again, battling their parents.





	Starting Now

**Author's Note:**

> My AU is now very definitely off the rails from the TV series, but I'm still stealing bits from it that I like.

It comes as no surprise to anyone when he’s the first to say it, his words lancing through the air of the abandoned warehouse where they are, once again, battling their parents. This is not how he wanted to say it for the first time, but Chase is worried that if he holds it in, there won’t be another chance, especially when his father’s hand is gripped around his neck, which, hey pops, we’ve done this before, how about you go for something new this time? He has the Fistigons set, on, ready to shoot, but he can’t. He still can’t even after everything. What he does do is look across the warehouse to where Gert and Molly are back to back, Old Lace near them growling, whipping her tail around as a clear indication that if anyone comes close she’ll rip them apart, while Tina holds her hands out, mouth moving, either trying to talk them down or attempting some sort of spell, Chase doesn’t know. Can Nico’s mom cast spells without the staff or is she just being coldly manipulative and bitchy like normal?

Gert looks up, and he can see her jaw tighten and her eyes go rock hard as she sees him and his dad. Chase often wishes he was telepathic because it would make things so much easier. Especially in situations like these where he knows that Gert wants to make a beeline right for him, probably clock his father in the face again and then shout damning proclamations at him until he shrivels up beneath the force of her ire, turns to dust, and blows away. Given enough time, he’s sure Gert could manage it, but they don’t have time--it seems they never do--and he doesn’t want her putting herself in danger anyway. He shakes his head, mouths, “Please stay there,” at her, but he doesn’t know how clearly she’ll be able to see his lips, if she can even lip read, and Chase hasn’t taught anyone sign language yet, hasn’t even mentioned that he knows it, learned hurriedly and in secret with his mother back in the worst days so she could easily tell him not to be in the house without alerting his father. Victor eventually caught on, threatened to break her fingers, and it stopped, but Chase has never forgotten it, and he thinks it would be pretty useful for them as a group. 

So when the hand around his throat tightens just a little--his father is not putting his all into it right now, this is for show more than anything else and Chase should know because this is a position he’s been in more times than he wants to admit to anyone--he forces his attention back to that sneer and those dead, hard eyes. He is not going to be his father. He is not going to be iron and steel and a rock hard determination to succeed, to win. He is not going to be a man who loves nothing as much as his own intelligence. And he is going to make strides to ensure that he doesn't bite back his feelings anymore. Starting now. 

“Gert,” he shouts because it is necessary even though he hates raising his voice, and he catches the way she turns her head again, makes sure to look past his dad, pretend he isn't even there despite the fact that he's put a little force behind his thumb now and Chase can feel the pressure on his windpipe, focuses on nothing but Gert's pretty eyes behind her glasses “I love you, baby.” Hey, it's far from perfect, but there’s an instant where everything hard on Gert's face melts away, turns into the smile that is just for him, and Chase forgets where they are, what's happening. Until the grip tightens and he chokes a little. 

“Her?” his father snarls like this declaration personally offends him, and Chase has never wanted to punch him back more in his life. 

“Hey, dad.” The words are a bit of an effort, and they sound wrong, but that's never stopped him from mouthing off before so why should it now. “How about you fuck off?” And then he brings his foot down in one of the first self-defense moves he ever learned, smashing his father's instep before switching his attention to his knee, kicking it savagely and then leveling a minor energy blast at his dad's chest to get him the fuck away. All rolled together it's potentially overkill, but Chase already knows bruises are going to bloom across his throat and that combined with the clear insult about Gert fuels his desire to just make Victor Stein pay for something, just once, just a little. Even if it’s petty. He can feel guilty about it later. (And he will even if Gert tells him not to.)

Despite the fact that Gert is potentially in the best position out of all of them, seeing as she has both Molly and Old Lace with her, Chase makes a beeline straight for her. Maybe it’s a problem, maybe it’s a weakness, maybe it’s something their parents can exploit in the long run because it doesn’t seem like this game is ever going to end. They will always be running, their parents will always be in hot pursuit, and then they will fight until something makes enough of a distraction that they can get away. The problem with heroes seems to be the fact that none of them are willing to do anything that will take their parents out for the duration. That and the fact that they have nowhere else to do, no one else to turn to other than each other. The cops are crooked, the politicians are crooked, for some reason Alex does not have the Avengers on speed dial despite his earlier statements to the contrary when they were younger. With all those options crossed out, Chase doesn’t know what else they can do except muddle through the occasional confrontations, hope that no one gets severely injured, and do enough damage to stall their parents' long-term plans for a little longer while trying to figure out the endgame.

There are worse ways to live, he thinks, but he’d rather be telling Gert that he loves her when it’s just the two of them on some kind of date, which they’ve yet to really have and he needs to figure out how to change that, instead of in the middle of a battleground. Chase Stein’s dream was always to grow up and get away, put as much distance between himself and his father as he could, find a way to make his own money so he wouldn’t have to depend on his parents for anything. This is. Not quite that. But it’s pretty damn good. He has a girlfriend who is the smartest, fiercest person on the entire planet, potentially in the whole goddamn universe, who kisses soft and completely like once she’s around him nothing else, even all those causes that she worries about every single moment of every single day, matters anymore. And he has three sisters who can be annoying but are wonderful. And there’s Old Lace who curls near him and rests her head on his lap like a giant house cat who could swallow him in one gulp but has no interest in doing that whatsoever, just wants to be warm, just wants to cuddle. There’s Alex and while they haven’t always gotten along, they’re getting better so, yeah, he’s got a brother, too. 

Chase finally has the sort of family that doesn’t worry him every single second of every day, doesn’t fill him with anxiety when the morning comes, doesn’t give him nightmares, doesn’t make him try and plan out every conversation, every step. He finally lives with people whose movements don’t shock him into stillness, though there are still instances of that when one of them will move too quickly toward him, when he flinches or freezes, feels his heart hammer and his breath start to come quick as he prepares himself for blows that never land because these people. These people are not like that. These people are also not his father. So it might not be what he dreamed of when he was younger, but it’s good. It’s great. He’s not going to lose it. Not now, not ever, and certainly not to their parents who keep proving, time and again, that maybe they didn’t ever actually deserve to be parents. 

He’s so focused on getting to Gert that he misses the fact that Alex’s dad has gotten near him until Geoff Wilder punches him in the face, sends him tumbling to the ground on his ass, holding his jaw, and then there’s just pandemonium.

“Chase!” Gert’s voice is filled with enough fear, desperation, and sheer pain that he never wants to hear her sound like that again. It rips right into his chest and just does something wicked to his heart that he's not sure he'll ever recover from no matter how long he lives.

“I’m okay, baby,” he calls from his position on the ground, but he’s not sure whether or not she can hear him over the cacophony of Old Lace hurtling herself across the floor to slide in front of him, teeth and claws turned on Mr. Wilder ready to pounce, ready to rend skin and muscles and bone. They are not there yet. Chase does not want to see that. Old Lace, maybe sensing this, does not advance, and neither does Mr. Wilder. It’s some kind of stand-off, and all Chase can do is look around the room, try to gauge where everyone is and what their next move is going to be. This is not in his wheelhouse; he is not the planner or the tactician. He leaves that shit to Alex and Nico. At the end of the day, Chase just does things. Things that are typically tied to protecting them or making sure to get between his father and anyone else. It doesn’t matter what the others can do, Victor Stein is the biggest threat. Chase has a lifetime of proof, and he'll be damned if his dad ever gets the chance to show the rest of them what he's capable of doing with just his hands and his words, not even one bit of that globally lauded mind. 

“Nic,” he calls even though his jaw and his throat both hurt because his spooky sister is the one best equipped to get them the hell out of dodge right now, especially when he hears Molls yell something at Tina. Yeah. This is getting completely out of hand, and Karo is little more than a splash of color flitting through the air around where Alex is keeping the Yorkes busy. “We taking the express or not?”

“Yeah. Let me just bippity boppity boo us out of here, Chase. No pressure.” Nico only sounds slightly annoyed so he gathers that it's not completely out of the question. “But, like, proximity would help.”

Old Lace continues to growl at Mr. Wilder, edging closer to encourage him to keep his distance while Chase finds his feet and then Gert's arm is around his waist, clenching into his shirt with a ferocity that tells him she's terrified more than any words from her mouth ever would. “You alright?” he asks, and it's the wrong moment to get lost in her eyes, to tuck errant strands of dyed purple hair behind her ear, but it's Gert and he loves her and it's important to make sure she’s not hiding injury from him, which is pretty par for the course with her.

Gert rolls her eyes at him, but that doesn't manage to hide the concern writ large on her features or the way her fingers skim briefly across his neck and cheek. “You should take a look at yourself before you ask anyone else that, hotshot.”

“Hey. Don't worry about me. I'm used to it.” The way Gert cringes at the words reminds him that he's not supposed to be, shouldn't be brushing off his father nearly choking him in front of his friends or a punch to the jaw. But, really, the biggest change is that now it's happening in front of his friends instead of behind closed doors. The biggest change is that he is, slowly, learning to talk about it, unpack all those boxes that he has kept locked up in his mind and his heart from the moment he was old enough to understand what a secret was and why it was important to keep it even though his parents twisted that knowledge for their own gain. Mostly his father but. Sometimes he has a hard time forgiving his mother for her actions as well even though he knows she tried. Part of him will always think that it wasn’t enough, but other parts of him are quick to tell remind him that he has no idea what she was really going through or how hard it was for her.

This is why he hates opening those boxes even if it’s important, even if it makes him feel better, lighter inside instead of a coiled ball of rubber bands ready to snap at any moment. All those boxes are full of complex, multi-layered things. He cannot simply react, has to sit and think and process them. It’s a lot more reflecting than doing, and Chase has preferred doing for most of his life.

There are so many things that Gert wants to say to him; he can tell that just by looking at her eyes, at the set of her mouth, but they don’t have time for that right now. And this isn’t the place. They are outnumbered even though his father is still knocked out, and Old Lace is keeping Mr. Wilder at bay, and Molly has, woah look at that, apparently tied Mrs. Minoru up with some rope that was lying around. Even with those three contained there are still the Yorkes and Mrs. Wilder and Mrs. Dean. Chase’s mother is decidedly absent from all their encounters with their parents, and he tries not to think too much on that. The Yorkes are, typically, useless in a fight, which is unsurprising. Most of the time, they remain in the corners and try to use their words to whittle at Gert and Molly, platitudes about how they love them, how everything will be forgiven, that they can just come home. It wears at Molly, little by little, but it just cements resolve in Gert. He wonders if they know that but just cannot stop trying. Victor only acts with violence, never mentions reconciliation; it’s stopped surprising him, but it still hurts.

“C’mon,” he says, grabbing at Gert’s hand and making his way toward where Nico is, staff planted in front of her, ring already glowing. Behind them, he hears Old Lace growl, the sound of her tail as it swipes across the ground, and then an oof from Mr. Wilder as he hits hard. The others have peeled away from their respective positions holding off the adults, everyone working on converging on Nico.

“Gert,” he hears Mr. Yorkes call out, feels Gert’s hand in his tighten on instinct. When Chase looks over, well, the Yorkes look happy, pleased. They’re smiling. At her. At him.

His stomach lurches a bit. They’re evil, horrible, terrible people, but, still, they’re the best of them, and they always look genuinely proud of their daughters even though he still isn’t sure whether they experimented on Molly or not, and waffles between being lowkey or highkey mad at them about it. Looking at them now, all he wants to do is tell them to be better villains, stop making it so hard on them. Be blatantly evil, he wants to scream, ask my dad for instructions. But, no, all he thinks about is Gert’s bat mitzvah, her face clearly decreeing that this was not for her except that she enjoyed the small challenge of it, the Hebrew and the singing, and then how excited she was at the present they gave her after the ceremony, a drum kit and lessons, one of the things that Gert had wanted most. That’s what he thinks about, all the little things he has seen the Yorkes do to make their daughters happy over the years.

This would be easier if they unleashed a hoard of trained birds to fight them, he thinks, and then immediately hates his mind because he saw Birdemic, and he does not want to go out like that. Doesn’t want to go out at all, there’s a lot to live for, he’s holding the best part of that in his hand, but if he has to, when he has to, it had better not be like that.

Molly reaches Nico at the same time they do, and Chase wraps his free arm around her shoulders as a physical reminder of support because she's clearly trying not to look at the Yorkes. Whereas Gert continues to glare at them, staring them down until they both eventually look away, stop talking. God, he loves her. God, she is amazing. He doesn't even have big enough words to describe what she means to him. No one does. They haven't been invented yet. Maybe he’ll be the one to try if things ever slow down.

Now that they're all together, Nico jumps into action, her words lost in the energy that swirls around them and whisks them away. Teleporting, however, turns out to be easier said than done. Oh, they end up where they're supposed to in the middle of the main room of the Hostel, but Chase swears it feels like his insides got left behind as he lets go of the Fistigons and they tumble to the floor. Even Karo stumbles a bit with Nico quick to move under her arm to steady her. 

Alex, the surprise rollercoaster enthusiast of their group, is the one who looks the least unsettled by the jolt, though his brow is furrowed, potentially by the sight of how close Nico and Karo are. Chase doesn't have time to untie everything in that Gordian knot, especially not at the moment when his own insides feel like they’ve been sucked into a black hole and spat back out.

Turning loose of both Gert and Molly, Chase sinks to the floor and settles on his back, eyes closed and trying to right the spinning. “Okay. Reminder for next time. That spell deserves a content warning.”

Old Lace makes a howling noise that reminds him of the cat they had for exactly six months before his father, in an explosive fit of rage, grabbed it by the scruff of its neck and threw it outside. It never came back proving itself extremely intelligent. But this type of sound normally heralded the cat puking somewhere, and, opening his eyes, Chase sticks a hand in the air, gesturing away. “Old Lace, not in here, girl.” The dinosaur, who listens to him more and more, makes a sad sound before shuffling out of the room. 

He'll worry about where she and her unsettled stomach end up later. When his is a little more stable. 

Molly looks pale and slightly green, and before he can offer, Gert is leading her sister out of the room to throw up or get water or something with a small gesture in his direction that he's pretty sure is made to encourage him to stay still. Okay, he'll listen. He wants to help but staying put sounds like an excellent idea right now just until the room stops spinning, just until he stops spinning.

An impressed whistle comes from above his head and Chase opens his eyes again to find Alex there, hands shoved into his jeans pockets, looking like he feels out of place, cut off from the rest of them. The loss of the others always seemed to impact Alex more, Chase knows. After all, he's the reason they're back together as a group because Alex just couldn’t leave well enough alone. When he thinks about it like that, Alex is the reason he and Gert are together and Chase should be thanking him. Something else that's better left for later. 

“I think you're going to have a black eye. Looks like my dad got you good.” Then there's a sharp intake of breath as Alex's eyes skate lower; Chase knows what that means. “Shit.” Curse words always sound weird from Alex, like he has to stop and think about them for a moment too long, decide to use them instead of letting them roll off his tongue naturally. “Your neck.”

Chase doesn't need a mirror to know how it looks or how fast he bruises there. Considering how their underground living doesn't allow for a lot of sunbathing his tan has faded, which will make it even more prominent, but he still feels confident in his answer, “It's been worse,” because it undoubtedly has over the years. 

Alex winces like he doesn't want to know, and looks away like he doesn't want to see. 

Chase forgets sometimes that not everyone is Gert, relishing honest answers above all else, even comfort. Now that he has started to loosen his tongue, he forgets that not all of them are aware of just how terrible his father actually is, how bad parts of his life were. “Sorry,” he adds because what else can he do. He cannot undo what's been done, cannot take away the words that have already been spoken. 

“Will it, uh, be alright?” Alex sounds like he doesn't know what to say, would rather be anywhere else. 

“Should be fine. My singing voice can't really be ruined anyway. Not like Gert's.” The words are out of his mouth before he can stop himself, which, dumb Chase, bad Chase. He's supposed to be more careful than that. Music has heavy connotations for the rest of them. Chase might be able to just think of Gert these days, but one look confirms his suspicions that it's not that easy for Alex. His face has closed like a door. 

It's really not fair, Chase thinks, how this can't be Gert's thing anymore just because it's no longer shared. She's good at it, but it's locked up, off limits. People who think she's cruel never see all the little things she does for those she cares about. Even when those actions potentially hurt her or take things away from her. Chase knows that Gert will still sing to Molly because not only has she told him about it, but he has also seen it several times since they’ve been in the Hostel. And she will sing to him, though her voice is less sure then, more halting, as though she’s embarrassed by it. Around the others, it never comes up. Not even in the good moments, and there are lots of good moments. Despite what their lives have become, the good outnumber the bad.

“Sorry, I didn’t think,” he says to Alex’s blank eyes and the way his lips are pressed together. He is looking away, and Chase would turn to follow his gaze if his head and his stomach weren’t both still spinning.

“No, it’s fine, it’s cool, it’s good,” Alex says, and it’s a litany of hollow words wherein Chase knows every single one of them means that it is none of those things. “I’m just going to go and check on Nico.”

Nico who, last time Chase saw her, was herding Karo off somewhere, which means that Alex is probably going to go check on what they’re up to. One would think that finding out your parents were evil, murdering supervillains would somehow top normal teenage drama, but it turns out that it doesn’t. Normal teenage drama continues to happen only now it’s much more annoying because they’re already all stressed over their parents. He groans and closes his eyes. Alex leaves, and he can tell by the sound of his footsteps that he’s upset.

At some point, Chase knows that he should pick himself off the floor and go find Gert and Molly. And Old Lace. That last one is potentially going to be a nightmare depending on whether or not there is a dinosaur-sized puddle of vomit to discover. Continuing to lie on the hard floor seems like a much better option. Just for a little longer at least. He closes his eyes and tries to think about anything other than feeling like his guts have been flipped inside out and stuffed with whirlpools. He thinks about the look on Gert’s face when he blurted out, for everyone to hear, that he loves her. 

He wonders, in the small part of him that is always waiting for the worst, for the bottom of the universe to fall out from under him and send him spinning head over heels into space, whether she loves him, too. Gert is fond of him, he knows that. Despite her niggling comments and teasing, she very obviously enjoys his company. When everything is hard around them and she has every reason to match it, she is soft with him. Gert has a smile for him, just for him, he’s been watching so he knows, and there is this way she looks at him that he is positive he has never seen on her face before, but these things do not necessarily amount to love. 

It would okay if she did not love him right now. It’s okay if it’s just a strong like or an attraction, an infatuation, something. It’s okay if it’s not quite love yet. Because it could be, it might be another day another time. It would not be the end of the world, just a hiccup, just something sharp like thorns caught beneath his breastbone, poking very slightly every time he breathes. Chase has endured worse. He could live with it. It would not kill him. Not all at once at any rate.

Chase hears someone approach, but it says a lot about how far he’s come that he does not immediately open his eyes or flinch away, just stays where he is because it’s nice on the floor and none of these people are going to hurt him. “I’m not moving yet. Not even if there’s a giant puddle of sick somewhere. I’m not cleaning it. I’ll just add to it.”

“You don’t have to move.” It’s Gert; he opens his eyes. She’s standing above him, legs on either side of his waist, which he must still be somewhat out of it to have let anyone get that close without moving a little or she’s learned to be as silent as a ninja, and looking down at him in concern, a bag of frozen peas in her hand.

“What’s that for?” he asks, inclining his head toward the peas. None of them except Karo will touch peas, and he imagines that she must have bought them in an effort to force the rest of them into being healthier. She should have picked another vegetable. 

“Your face.” 

“Aw. Can’t stand the thought of me not being pretty, huh? I knew you just liked me for my looks.”

Gert rolls her eyes at him, and then straddles his hips, which is both the best thing in the entire world and potentially ill-advised for a number of reasons that he does not want to enumerate on at the moment because then she might move and he wants to remember this forever in case it never happens again. “You caught me. It has nothing to do with your giant, stupid heart that wants to keep everyone safe or your quick, challenging mind always prepared with a comeback. It’s all about your face. Nothing else.” When she presses the bag to his cheek, it is as gingerly as he has ever seen her do anything, as gently as though she thinks he might be the one to break under her hands.

“I don’t. I’m not sure what to do about.” It’s not like Gert to have trouble finishing a sentence, but he watches the way her eyes focus on his neck, how the muscles in her face tighten, giving away the fact that she is clenching her teeth, and knows why it’s hard. No matter how much she teases, no matter how flippant she can be. Gert cares about him, and she wants to rip the sun out of the sun and use it to burn his father off the face of the earth.

Chase reaches up to take the bag of peas from her hand and settle it across his throat. “This will help that, too. It’s not so bad this time. He wasn’t really trying that hard.” He swears that he can hear her teeth grind together in her skull, and reaches his other hand up to cup her cheek, pressing his thumb into her jaw. “I’m okay, baby. Both my pretty face and my throat. All good. I think Nico’s teleport was the worst thing I experienced today.” He wonders if they can somehow get their hands on airsick pills if those would even work for this method of travel.

The expression on Gert’s face is trying very hard to be annoyed but is failing. If anything, it most closely resembles something like awe, and it reminds him of when she would come over to his house to use his father’s telescope and look at the stars. He pretended to be enamored with his phone, wrapped up in stupid app games and texting obnoxiously popular people that he was supposed to be friends with because they were part of the world he had dived into, but he spent a lot of that time watching her, covertly, because Gert was never prettier, never more enthralling than when she was fascinated by something, when her mind was working very hard. 

“What are you thinking about?” he asks when her silence continues to stretch out like a spool of thread dropped and unfurling across the floor. He would follow it anywhere just to see where it goes, that’s how much he loves her.

Gert has folded her hands on his sternum and is looking at them as though trying to solve some puzzle, as if she can find the answers to the universe in the whorls on her skin, lines that he would happily dissolve into if given a chance and a way to do so. If he were younger, if he had not kissed her, not held her hands, not fallen in love with her, Chase would probably try and goad her into words or action right now. In his world, silence has been deadly, the calm before the storm, and he learned to fear it, but that is not Gert. It is easier now. It is easier to be quiet while she sorts through what she wants to say, how best to approach it. 

“What you said.”

Draping the bag of peas across his neck, he rubs his cold fingers across his shirt in an attempt to warm them before he reaches for her hands. “That really wasn’t how I planned to tell you for the first time.”

When Gert looks at him, her eyes are shrewd, searching. “You meant it.”

She may as well have punched him in the gut, and he instantly knows that his face has given him away by the way her expression changes, softens, and he tries to remember that even though he thinks Gert is the strongest, bravest, best person in the universe, this is the same girl who used to be unable to order for herself when they went to restaurants because of the way her anxiety would kick up, her indecision in whether what she wanted was good enough. He remembers that, ordering for her once she had made up her mind but just couldn’t get the words out, nonchalantly, as though it was nothing. That act in front of people had always been easy for him so why not use his comfort to make it easier for her. 

Make it easier for her. 

“Sorry,” she says, and Chase can hear the undercurrent of her voice, the annoyance driven backward at herself. Someone who sees the flaws in everything, someone who puts each person in their life under a microscope, must have cataloged all of her own failings by now, must know each and every way that she could be found wanting. Gert doesn’t talk about that, though, doesn’t admit that sort of weakness. When she is worried about Molly, she talks to him about that. When she is concerned about what their parents are doing, she mentions it. On the rare occasions when she misses them, she will curl into his arms and try not to speak at all. But of herself, of what bothers her there, she says little, and Chase isn’t sure why when he will spill seemingly endless reams of reasons why he is lacking. 

She listens, and she works to help disprove every single one.

Maybe she is afraid he will confirm her own fears. Maybe she is worried that if she speaks them aloud, they will stain her skin the way he worries his own failures will mark her. Maybe she just needs more time.

Chase traces his fingers down her cheek to her neck and back up again. “I meant it.”

Gert smiles, shy, and it is the most beautiful thing he has seen today. She is the most beautiful thing he sees every day. “How had you planned to tell me?”

Nothing is more Gert than skirting the edges of a topic in order to avoid something, and he is not going to push the issue. Not at the moment. Not when she is sitting on his hips and smiling down at him, her hands warm on his chest, fingers linked through his own. It is not an undying declaration, but it’s enough. It’s so much more than he could have hoped for all those months ago when he was pining, when he was nowhere near this close to her ever. “I was still thinking about it. But our parents definitely wouldn’t have been there. I think,” he pauses for a moment, considering, half expecting Gert to warn him against straining anything, but the jest does not come. There’s just her, rapt. “I think we’d need to get away a little bit, outside of the city, somewhere you can see the stars. So you could look at the stars, and I could look at you. And tell you. Brush your hair away from your ear and whisper it just for you to hear. You wouldn’t hear me. You’d be looking at the stars. I’d have to say it again. I wouldn’t mind. I’d say it all the time. If that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be. I can not say it. I know I never shut up, but I could. If you wanted me to.”

Okay, perhaps that is a little unrealistic. “I could try. I might not be very good at it.”

It takes Gert a moment longer to say anything than he would have expected it to, and her eyes seem to be just a little wet. “Why the stars, Chase?”

“Do you remember when you would come over to my house to stargaze?”

“Yes. You spent all the time looking at your phone. I was the only reason you passed that assignment.”

He blushes. “That is not entirely true.” When Gert quirks an eyebrow at him, he laughs and reaches out to run his fingers over it. “No, you are totally the only reason I passed that assignment. Thank you. I’m not sure if I said that before. What I meant is that it’s not entirely true that I spent all the time looking at my phone.”

“Oh?” It means so much more than that, that small noise. It means go on, and I’m intrigued, and I’m not entirely sure what you’re up to yet but I am eager to find out and you know it and are being slow on purpose.

“You’re beautiful by starlight.” He doesn’t know what shade of red Gert turns except that it clashes with her hair, but even like that he still loves her. 

She rests both her elbows on his chest and leans closer, disrupting his hands so he puts them on either side of her face, strokes his fingers into her hair, and just watches her. She is close enough that he can see the way her lips curl, flatten, and then curl again as well as how her eyes spark like they are full of fireworks. “You don’t have to make yourself shut up.”

“No?”

“No, I like your mouth.”

He can’t hold back the chuckle even though it makes his throat twinge just a bit. “I’m pretty talented with it.”

“That is hardly appropriate,” she chides him, but she is grinning. Grinning and leaning steadily, slowly forward. 

“You started it.”

“I can end it, too.”

“I’d like to see you try it.” He loves this, the back and forth jesting with no fire, none of the barbs they used to sling when they were younger, verbal rocks launched across a playing field where they were evenly matched. This is different, tender, calming. And it’s fine if Gert can’t say it yet, doesn’t even seem able to toe close enough to it to tell him that.

It’s fine because it’s Gert, and sometimes it takes her a while to fully realize something. She needs facts and research and time. Chase is the one always diving headfirst into everything. He can wait. He can wait for her forever as long as she will let him. 

“I love you, too,” she whispers, words that are barely there, her voice shuddery as it slips from her mouth, and then her lips are on his, and he is lost. In her. In the feeling of the kiss. In the words that etch themselves across his heart and feel like they are strong enough to rewrite his damn DNA into something better, something more deserving of her. 

Chase kisses her back, fingers in her hair, and doesn’t think about anything other than the fact that she is there, and he is there, that they are together. It doesn’t matter what their parents throw at them. It doesn’t matter what comes next. All that matters, right now, is that he loves her, and she loves him back, that they have both been brave enough to say it.


End file.
